Survivor Annuity Benefits: Eligibility, Claims, and Taxes

Federal survivor annuity benefits are monthly payments made by the Office of Personnel Management to the eligible spouse, former spouse, or child of a deceased federal employee or retiree. The maximum monthly benefit is 55% of the retiree’s annuity under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and 50% under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS). What a survivor actually receives depends on which system covered the employee, what election the retiree made at retirement, and, for former spouses, what a divorce court ordered.

Who Can Receive a Survivor Annuity

A surviving spouse generally qualifies if they were married to the employee or retiree for at least the nine months immediately before the death. The nine-month rule is waived if the couple had a child together or if the death was accidental.¹ Under CSRS, the requirement is also waived when the couple was previously married to each other, divorced, and their combined time as spouses totals at least nine months.² Common-law marriage counts if the state where the employee was living at death recognizes it.³

A former spouse can qualify only if a court order on file with OPM specifically awards them a survivor annuity. The order has to name the retirement system and explicitly grant a former spouse survivor annuity. Language that simply divides “retirement benefits” is not enough.⁴ Once the employee retires or dies, OPM will not accept modifications to the order.

Unmarried children under 18 qualify. Coverage continues to age 22 for a child who is a full-time student at a recognized school.⁵

Insurable Interest Annuities

A retiree in good health at retirement can name someone with an insurable interest, meaning a person who would suffer financial loss from the retiree’s death, to receive an annuity. The retiree’s own annuity is reduced by 10%, plus 5% more for each full five years the named individual is younger, up to a 40% reduction.⁶ If the named individual dies first, the retiree’s annuity is restored to the full unreduced amount. A married retiree using this option for a spouse must waive the regular survivor annuity.

How Much the Survivor Receives

Under CSRS, the maximum survivor annuity is 55% of the retiree’s unreduced annuity. The retiree can also elect a lower base amount, in which case the survivor gets 55% of that chosen base.⁷ Funding the benefit comes out of the retiree’s own monthly check.⁸

Under FERS, the maximum is 50% of the retiree’s unreduced annuity, paid for by a 10% reduction in the retiree’s check.⁹ A partial FERS election gives the survivor 25% of the unreduced annuity, with a smaller reduction to the retiree’s monthly payment.⁷

Both systems apply annual cost-of-living adjustments to survivor annuities. CSRS survivors receive the full COLA matching the consumer price index. FERS survivors receive COLAs even under age 62, though the FERS formula can be slightly less generous when inflation runs high. Children’s annuities use the CSRS COLA rules under both systems.

If the Employee Dies While Still Working

The numbers change when death happens in active service. Under FERS, a surviving spouse of an employee who completed at least 18 months of civilian service receives a lump-sum Basic Employee Death Benefit equal to 50% of the employee’s final annual salary (or average salary, if higher) plus $43,800.53 for deaths occurring after December 1, 2025.¹ That dollar figure is the original $15,000 statutory base adjusted for inflation.⁹ The lump sum can be paid at once or spread across 36 monthly installments.

If the FERS employee had at least 10 years of service (with at least 18 months civilian), the surviving spouse also gets a monthly annuity equal to 50% of what the employee’s annuity would have been. Under CSRS, a spouse whose employee-spouse dies with at least 18 months of civilian service generally receives 55% of the annuity earned through the employee’s creditable service and average salary.⁸

The Spousal Consent Form at Retirement

Federal law requires a married employee retiring under CSRS or FERS to elect a full survivor annuity for the current spouse unless the spouse signs a written consent to a lesser election or none at all. That consent is final. Once signed, it cannot be revoked. The form warns the spouse in plain language that waiving the survivor annuity means no monthly payments after the retiree’s death and no continued federal health insurance coverage.⁶

If you are the spouse of a federal employee approaching retirement, understand exactly what the waiver takes away before signing. A court order that awards survivor benefits to a former spouse does not require the current spouse’s consent, but it does reduce what remains available.

Filing a Claim With OPM

Report the death to OPM first. OPM then sends a packet containing the application forms. CSRS survivors file SF 2800. FERS survivors file SF 3104 with SF 3104B attached.¹⁰

A complete application includes:

A certified death certificate from the local registrar or health department.
A marriage certificate for a spousal claim.
Birth certificates for children’s claims.
Proof of full-time student status for children between 18 and 22.
A certified copy of the court order for a former spouse claim.

You will also need the deceased’s OPM retirement claim number, which begins with “CSA” for retirees or “CSF” for survivors and runs nine characters total.¹¹ If you don’t have it, OPM can look it up using the Social Security number.¹²

Send the package to the OPM Retirement Operations Center, P.O. Box 45, Boyers, PA 16017.¹³ Use a trackable shipping method. Lost paperwork means starting over, and replacing certified documents costs time and money.

When Payments Start

OPM’s published processing time is roughly 26 days for a complete survivor annuity claim and about 63 days for lump-sum survivor claims.¹⁴ Missing documents restart the clock, so watch your mail for any OPM requests during this period.

A surviving spouse’s annuity begins accruing the day after the death, regardless of when OPM finishes processing.¹⁵ The first payment usually covers the full stretch from that date. While a claim is finalized, OPM often issues interim payments of roughly 60 to 80% of the estimated final annuity. Interim payments include federal tax withholding but not deductions for health, dental, or vision insurance, so premiums for those have to be handled separately during the interim period.

A former spouse’s annuity based on a court order starts on whichever comes later: the day after the death, or the first day of the second month after OPM receives a certified copy of the order and supporting documents.

How the Payments Are Taxed

Survivor annuity payments from CSRS and FERS are generally taxable as federal income. A portion of each payment may be excluded as a tax-free return of the employee’s own contributions. The IRS requires survivors to use the Simplified Method, which divides the employee’s total contributions by a number of months based on the survivor’s age when payments begin.¹⁶

Once the total contributions have been fully recovered through those monthly exclusions, every dollar of the annuity becomes taxable. For annuities that began after 1986, the total tax-free amount cannot exceed what the employee contributed. OPM issues a 1099-R each year showing the taxable and tax-free portions.

Survivor annuity payments to the spouse, former spouse, or child of a public safety officer killed in the line of duty are generally excluded from income entirely. The exclusion does not apply if the death resulted from the officer’s own misconduct or intoxication.

Health Insurance and Life Insurance

A surviving spouse who was covered under the Federal Employees Health Benefits program as a family member at the time of death can continue that FEHB coverage as a survivor annuitant. Premiums come out of the monthly annuity at the same rate the enrollee had been paying.¹⁷ If the annuity is too small to cover the premium, the survivor can pay OPM directly, but that switch is permanent. Even if the annuity later grows enough to cover premiums, a survivor who has moved to direct payment cannot go back to annuity deduction.

Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance is a separate claim, filed on Form FE-6 with a certified death certificate. FEGLI claims go to the Office of Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance in Scranton, Pennsylvania, not to the Retirement Operations Center in Boyers.¹⁸ FEGLI is a one-time payout with its own beneficiary designation rules, not a recurring annuity.

When Survivor Benefits End

A surviving spouse who remarries before age 55 loses the survivor annuity. Remarriage at or after 55 does not affect payments. There is also an exception for long marriages: if the surviving spouse was married to the deceased for at least 30 years, remarriage at any age does not terminate benefits.¹⁹

Under CSRS, a surviving spouse who lost the annuity to a pre-55 remarriage can have it restored at the original rate if that subsequent marriage later ends through death, annulment, or divorce. The survivor has to elect the restored annuity rather than any survivor benefit from the newer marriage, and any lump sum paid out when the annuity ended has to be returned. Former spouses who lose benefits to remarriage before 55 do not get this restoration.

A child’s annuity ends the month before the child turns 18, marries, or dies, whichever comes first. Full-time students can be paid until age 22, but the annuity stops if the child marries or drops below full-time enrollment. A child whose annuity ended at 18 can have it restarted if they become a full-time student before age 22 and remain unmarried.²⁰ For a child receiving benefits based on a pre-18 disability, payments end if the child recovers. Report any of these life changes to OPM promptly. Overpayments are collected back.

The End of the Government Pension Offset

For decades, CSRS survivors who also qualified for Social Security survivor benefits saw those Social Security payments cut by two-thirds of the federal pension amount under the Government Pension Offset. The Social Security Fairness Act, signed on January 5, 2025, eliminated both the GPO and the related Windfall Elimination Provision. December 2023 was the last month either rule applied, so Social Security benefits payable for January 2024 and later are no longer reduced.²¹

A CSRS surviving spouse whose Social Security survivor benefit was previously reduced or zeroed out by the GPO may now be entitled to the full amount, plus retroactive payments back to January 2024. The Social Security Administration is processing adjustments. Survivor benefit applications cannot be filed online, so contact SSA directly to start or update a claim.

1
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. FERS Information – Survivors
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8341 – Survivor Annuities
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U.S. Office of Personnel Management. I Have a Common Law Spouse
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eCFR. 5 CFR Part 838 Subpart H – Requirements for Court Orders Awarding Former Spouse Survivor Annuities
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U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Survivor Annuity Benefits5 CFR Part 843 Subpart D – Child Annuities
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8339 – Computation of Annuity
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U.S. Office of Personnel Management. What Is a Partial Survivor Benefit?
8
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Retirement Facts 1 – Civil Service Retirement System
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8442 – Rights of a Widow or Widower
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U.S. Office of Personnel Management. What Does the OPM Retirement Claim Number Look Like?
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U.S. Office of Personnel Management. What Is the OPM Retirement Claim Number?
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U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Retirement Processing Times
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U.S. Office of Personnel Management. When Do My Benefits Begin?
16
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 721 – Tax Guide to U.S. Civil Service Retirement Benefits
17
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Information for Retirees and Survivor Annuitants
18
U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Death Claims
19
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 5 USC 8341 – Survivor Annuities
20
eCFR. 5 CFR Part 843 Subpart D – Child Annuities
21
Social Security Administration. Social Security Fairness Act – Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset